


A Heart Left Behind

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [84]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Cats, Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Pets, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24781651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Loki is there with you when your world comes to an end.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [84]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 12
Kudos: 131





	A Heart Left Behind

The world had ended.

For you, anyway. Maybe you felt a little bit silly, a little bit babyish, for being so upset over something like this, but you couldn’t help it. Your best friend was gone. 

You had human friends. You had really good human friends. It was kind of sad and pathetic to call a cat your best friend, but it felt right. You’d gotten her when you’d first moved to the city. Only a couple of weeks after you’d settled in to your new home, you’d gotten kind of restless, kind of lonely, and you’d gotten a cat.

For all the noise that the rest of the world made about how cold and aloof cats were, she was great company. Once she’d gotten used to the space and to your presence, you couldn’t get rid of her. She’d follow you from room to room in your tiny apartment and, if somehow she felt that you weren’t giving her enough attention, she’d meow loudly at you to make sure you knew about it. She rarely scratched and never bit, and she adored chasing one of her many wand toys or hunting her little catnip mice. 

When you got her, the lady at the rescue told you that she would probably never be a lap cat or really want to cuddle you, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Once she got comfortable in your home—in _her_ home—she was all over you. You’d spent many nights sitting on the couch with her purring like an engine in your lap or stretched out on the cushion next to you.

The size of your apartment made you feel guilty, sometimes. Was it big enough for her? Was she comfortable here, or did she sometimes feel trapped, penned-in? In an especially potent fit of guilt one night, you’d ordered a cat harness online in hopes of being able to take her for walks in the city. You were not about to let her wander around out there on her own, because you wanted to make sure she stayed safe and healthy, but maybe the streets could be a nice change of scenery for her. She took to the harness immediately, and loved going for walks with you. You had mixed feelings about the attention you got, being a single woman in the city walking a _cat_ , but you had to admit that you loved it when children made a fuss over the novelty of a cat on a leash. 

You hadn’t really known what to expect from her when Loki started visiting. You didn’t have a lot of visitors, but she tended to make herself scarce on the rare occasion that a maintenance guy came into your apartment. She sat in the doorway for a long time, watching Loki like she was trying to get a feel for who he was. He mainly ignored her unless you asked him to give her a treat. She didn’t hesitate to take it from him, and you rarely fought very hard to keep from grinning at the sight. Loki, that tall, gorgeous, regal man, would crouch down and hold his hand out with the treat resting on his palm, and she’d come over to sniff his hand and then gently, gently take it from him. The first time you realized how much you loved him, it was when she let him reach out to scratch behind her ear. Then he’d stood up and flashed you a smile with just a hint of pride, and you’d very nearly blurted out the words right there.

If the two of you were sitting together on your couch, talking or holding each other or, rarely, watching television, sometimes she’d jump up and curl up next to you, but more often, she perched in her tower by the window to keep watch. Loki started staying the night. She didn’t join you in bed that first night with him, opting instead to climb up onto your dresser and eye him suspiciously. But in the morning, you’d slowly cracked open your eyes and had to stifle a laugh. He was lying on his back, and she was loafing on his chest. She looked at you with half-closed eyes and started purring.

The rescue hadn’t known exactly how old she was. They’d estimated around eight years old, which was kind of up there for a cat, but you knew that you could still have up to ten more years with her. She played like she was still a kitten, so it was easy to forget how old she might have been.

When she got sick, you did everything you could. You worked for Tony Stark, so you got paid more than enough to take care of the vet bills. They ran tests, kept her overnight, ran more tests, offered medication, suggested procedures, everything. Maybe it was a little embarrassing, how many sick days you had to take from work so you could get her what she needed, but you had the sick days for a reason.

It wasn’t enough. For all of your efforts and all of your willingness to do whatever it took to keep her around, she was slipping away. Her vet told you to keep an eye on her. As long as she was still eating and drinking normally, things would be okay. But she warned you that her condition could change without any notice. You watched her get a little bit creakier. She still hunted her toys, sometimes, but her accuracy was slipping. She couldn’t jump as high. She wanted to spend more time cuddling you on the couch. One morning, she didn’t even look at the food you set down for her, and dread coiled low in your stomach. That night, when you got home, her breakfast was still untouched. You replaced it with some of her absolute favorite food, and she did take a few bites of it, but then she looked at you and gave a low cry, and you knew.

It broke your heart to have to make the call, but you knew that putting her to sleep would be better for both of you than letting her deteriorate into misery. The vet came to your apartment so it could happen at home. You held her as the vet gave her a sedative. She fell asleep in your arms, and you couldn’t hold back your tears as the vet gave her that final injection. 

You took a few more days off of work. It felt stupid as hell, but there was a while when you couldn’t bear the thought of getting out of bed. Never again would she jump up in bed with you and bat at your face to wake you up for breakfast. She wouldn’t cry outside the bathroom door in the morning until you finally gave in—you always gave in—and let her in while you dried off after your shower and got ready for the day. She wouldn’t be there to greet you when you got home in the evening, her tail curled sweetly into that question-mark shape. So it was stupid for a grown adult to need to take a few days off work to mourn the loss of a pet cat, but you did what you had to do. You spent the time rounding up her things and digging her toys out from under the couch, and then you closed them all away in the back of the closet. You knew that you’d get another cat, but you couldn’t bear the thought of it right now.

After your first day back at work, you hung out at the Tower for longer than you needed to. There wasn’t much work to be done, and of course you weren’t getting paid, but you hated the idea of going back to that empty apartment. Your supervisor gave you weird looks, but you didn’t tell him anything. He was _certainly_ not the type to understand this kind of heartbreak. Loki made his way to your floor and offered to walk you home. Maybe he’d be enough of a distraction to keep you from falling apart when you opened your door. So you accepted.

He knew. You hadn’t asked him to be there in her last moments, but he’d stayed over the night before. She’d slept on top of your dresser for most of the night, but in the morning, she’d been curled up on his chest just like that first night. When he’d woken up, you were crying and petting her. He’d held you both without a word.

You unlocked your door and pushed it open, trying desperately not to think about who should have been waiting there for you. He stepped inside with you and closed the door behind him and immediately helped you take off your jacket. You weren’t sure what to say. Some part of your brain wanted to apologize to him for being so messed up over a cat. There were bigger losses in the world. There were so many other things that deserved your tears and grief and longing. But right now this hurt more than anything had ever hurt. After he’d hung up your jacket, he’d turned to face you. You were fighting back tears. He’d just said your name softly, sympathetically, and pulled you into his arms.

He wouldn’t let you apologize. Any time you gathered enough of your wits to try to figure out what to say to him, he just shushed you and held you closer. “It’s alright,” he’d murmured into the top of your head even as his hands traced soothing patterns against your back. “I’ve got you.” Familiar anger began to creep into you. A lot of the world still called him a monster. But they didn’t know him. If they knew him like you did, maybe they’d weep and beg him for forgiveness. He wasn’t a monster. He was your angel.

When you’d exhausted your most recent crying jag, he smoothed your hair down and kissed your forehead. “Go get changed,” he said in that same low voice. “I’ll order dinner.” 

You wanted to protest. He didn’t need to stay. You didn’t need to eat. The idea of either of those things seemed impossible to you. But he silenced you with a quick Look, and you just lowered your head and nodded. When dinner arrived, he made sure you ate, and he still did not leave. He sat in his spot on your couch and pulled you in close beside him and pressed his lips against your temple. He told you stories from his childhood. Early on, he’d discovered how some of the creatures in Asgard could make his mother’s ladies scream. He’d taken to adopting them—the creatures, that is—and always had some sort of terrarium in his room with squirmy or scaly or creepy creatures. Many of them died. Every time it happened, his mother would wipe his angry tears and promise him that his darlings were in a better place. She taught him how to better care for them. He read books and spoke to experts. They started to live longer, but of course nothing could live forever. Perhaps your cat, he mused quietly, combing his fingers gently through your hair, was with all of his Asgardian serpents and lizards.

That made you laugh despite yourself. “I hope not,” you said, remembering how she stalked creatures while out on walks. “She’ll spend her days chasing them and just...terrorizing them.” He’d laughed and kissed your temple again. 

There was comfort in knowing that Loki would remember your cat. She deserved to be remembered. Maybe, for as long as she still existed in the mind of someone on Earth, she would still be around. You knew that you would keep her memory close, treasuring it even as it tore at you. But, being human, you could only live so long. Loki would be around for much longer. You didn’t want to make him promise to remember her forever, but maybe he’d do it anyway, on his own. Long after you were gone, she’d still exist in _someone’s_ mind.

You nestled even closer to him and lowered your head to his shoulder. Losing her _hurt_ even if you had known that it was coming. That was always the trade-off with pets, it seemed. They brought so much joy and happiness into a person’s life, but it was only ever truly borrowed, set to be repaid at the very end when you had to say goodbye. Was it worth it? It was hard to say for sure. 

Probably it was. Eventually, you knew that you’d be able to remember the feel of her purring in your lap without wanting to break into tears. Eventually, you’d remember the way she looked when she was trying to get one of her mice out from under the couch, her tail twitching wildly as she strained to reach it, and you would only smile. You knew that this pain was not forever. But your love for her could be.

Loki held you close. When it got late, he rubbed your shoulder and asked you to come to bed with him. He didn’t roll his eyes or make fun of you when the feeling of slipping beneath your covers set you off again. He just hummed low in his chest and rubbed your back and promised that things would be okay again soon. When you tried, again and again, to apologize to him, to tell him that you knew you were acting like a child, he just hummed a little bit louder to drown out your words. When you’d completely soaked the shoulder of his shirt with your tears, he pulled away only so he could yank it off over his head and drop it onto the floor. Then he resettled you against his skin. You drew in deep breaths, and the smell of him calmed you.

He sang you to sleep with a song about a shining goddess in a chariot of gold. She rode through the realms, pulled by two large cats and followed by a never-ending parade of smaller cats behind her. You imagined that you could see your girl there, playing with all the others, and it made you smile.

You slept peacefully.


End file.
